Seoul Planners Optimistic For Games` Success

May 12, 1985|By Jean Allen, Travel Editor

If South Korea, small, divided and developing, has doubts about sponsoring a successful Olympiad, you couldn`t prove it by talking to Lee Jae-Hong.

Lee, director general of public relations and the culture department for the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee, believes everything is under control for the Summer Games scheduled Sept. 17 through Oct. 2, 1988. He shows it with a stream of statistics and an aura of optimism.

``We want to show that small divided or developing nations can do the Olympics well. We want to set an example,`` Lee said.

Among points he made during a recent interview at Seoul Olympics Organizing Committee headquarters in downtown Seoul:

(BU) Korea, hoping to break even on the Games, expects big bucks for television rights, which should be awarded by the end of this year.

``Historically, the figure for each succeeding Olympics is double or triple,`` said Lee, pointing out that the Sarajevo Winter Games in 1984 went to ABC for $90 million while the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary went for $308 million, also to ABC. Montreal`s Summer Games in 1976 went for $38 million; the Moscow 1980 Games bid was $85 million (but they never were televised in the United States) and Los Angeles 1984 rights went to ABC for $225 million.

(BU) TV rights are part of the break-even plan, which also includes a popular national lottery (wager about 70 cents, win as much as $118,000 in weekly drawings); sale of pins, coins and admission tickets; marketing of rights to use the emblem and mascot; and private construction of facilities whose builders will get them back after the Games.

(BU) Any snafus in Olympics arrangements will be spotted in September- October 1986 when Seoul hosts the Asian Games, which will draw athletes from 36 nations and an estimated 150,000 visitors. By then, the 33 venues for competition, plus 69 training and support facilities, will be completed.

(BU) The Olympics period ``is the best time of year; it is the dry season, the weather is fine,`` Lee said. Just in case, all the Olympics pools are indoors.

(BU) What about the 44 nations with which Korea has no diplomatic relations, including all of the Eastern bloc?

China has already agreed to attend and, Lee says, Russia sent word last month that it, too, will participate. A good sign was a recent tour through Seoul by Eastern bloc ice skaters, including Olympic gold medalist Katerina Witt of East Germany.

``If citizens from non-recognized countries want to come, we will grant visas and make them welcome,`` Lee said.

(BU) Security? In a capital that`s only 25 miles from the border of often- belligerent North Korea, ``We plan to have peaceful games,`` he said. ``Koreans are very security minded; the athletes and spectators will be safe.``

(BU) By 1988, 1,000 paid staffers and as many as 100,000 multilingual volunteers will be well trained. ``The human factor is very important,`` Lee said. SOOC has a staff of 300 and is operated by a 39-member committee.

(BU) Aside from a projected squeeze in hotel rooms, the city will make life easy on attendees with new highways, an improved airport, a subway line running to the main Olympics site, good bus service and inexpensive taxis. Most events will be played in or near Seoul, centering around the Seoul Sports Complex and the under-construction National Sports Complex three miles east.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Television: Prepare to sit up late for live events. It is unlikely we on the East Coast will see anything live before 10 p.m.; that`s 11 a.m. the next morning in Seoul.

``We`re not going to start athletes at some unreasonable hour such as 8 or 9 a.m.,`` Lee said.

``With some 230 events in 16 days, and very few on the opening and closing days, many must be run each day. We will not ask the athletes to wake up at 5 a.m. and begin to compete at 8 a.m. When we say morning, we mean 11 a.m. in Korea, which is 10 p.m. the previous night in Florida.``

Tickets/packages: Ticket prices, not set yet, will be ``reasonable,`` Lee said. And, unlike the ticketing chaos at the Los Angeles Games last year, they`ll be sold as part of tour packages and marketed in the United States. Hotel prices will be controlled during the Games to prevent gouging. As for ticket scalping, which is legal in California, Lee said there will be none of that: ``It`s illegal under our fair deal law.``

Symbols: Hodori, a tiger cub wearing a ribboned sagmo hat used in traditional farmers dances, is the Olympic mascot; the official emblem is a swirling design that represents the harmony among man, earth and heaven.

Hotels: Seoul, which has 54 tourist hotels including most major chains, is building more as fast as it can, with 12 new ones under construction or planned soon. But there`s likely to be a room shortage during the Olympics. Lee said there are now 23,013 tourist rooms and by 1987 there will be 33,632. However, he estimates that nearly 50,000 will be needed during the Games, when some 350,000 visitors are expected. Alternatives are simpler Korean inns called yokwan, youth hostels and rooms in private homes. ``We are considering buying some old ships from England to use as floating hotels,`` Lee said. ``Later, they could become restaurants or gambling casinos.``

An Olympic village for the 13,000 athletes, trainers and staffs, and a press village for the 9,000 journalists expected, will be built by the end of 1987. They will be apartment complexes that private interests build, lease to the Olympic Committee and later sell.